We have spent the last week in southern Spain on a very last minute family holiday with my brother, his wife and their two children. I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it, mostly due to these factors:
1. Our first flight with Winston – a child who does not fall to sleep accidentally and isn’t that great is terrible at staying still.
2. Worried about forgetting some of W’s essential clobber.
3. Neither myself or my husband are people that enjoy spending large amounts of time by the pool or at the beach. We’re more sightseers and readers.
How very wrong I was – none of the factors above affected anything about our holiday. We had a wonderful time together and we both agreed that W completely enhanced our holiday experience by a mile! We got to do plenty of sight seeing, it was absolutely boiling and Winston could not have been more of a star. I feel awful for expecting him to be anything other than brilliant.
Some highlights included:
– A day trip to Gibraltar. It it such an unusual fusion of Spanish and British culture with lots to see. WW2 tunnels in ‘The Rock’, lots of unexpected monkeys, incredible caves and rock formations, an aeroplane runway with barriers like a railway crossing – Winston loved watching the planes take off in such close proximity and so much more.
– A visit to an outdoor water park. Nobody questioned my pregnancy on queuing for the slides, so I managed to go on a few of the tamer ones. Strangely, I felt rather naughty.
– Getting to know my niece and nephew better, plus chatting to my brother and sister-in-law lots.
– Hearing Winston learn lots of new words and his pure joy on discovering so many new things. His ‘swimming’ is coming along nicely.
The items that saved my skin (many times) when travelling with a toddler were:
– Nak’d bars that I took with me. He didn’t fancy eating much during the day so these made sure he had some healthy fat and something with a decent calorie intake. He loves them.
– Copious amounts of Tesco party bubbles that can be whipped out for a quick distraction.
– My husbands tablet. Hubs downloaded a few apps – one learning about farm animals, another about transport, another about fruit and one where he could draw…and W loves nothing more that looking at pictures of himself so it came in handy for that too. Perfect for the plane!
– A pair of baby reins. I hate Winston being unnecessarily strapped into a pram so these ensured he was able to walk plenty. I don’t think they have baby reins in Spain as we got innumerable amounts of strange looks.
– Cousins. Far more interesting than parents!
E xx
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